WORLD

One thing the latest holiday sales season made crystal clear is that mobile commerce is on the rise. On Cyber Monday — which set an all-time-high overall sales record of US$6.6 billion — mobile shopping totaled 47.4 percent of visits to retailers’ websites, according to Adobe, which analyzed 1 trillion visits to more than 4,500 retail sites. Revenue from purchases ...

I’m not making a prediction here — I’m pondering a possibility. I spent a day with BlackBerry last week and it brought back memories of how Apple displaced the company around a decade ago. I, like a lot of folks at the time, thought what Apple was attempting was impossible. However, after the fact, it didn’t even look difficult. BlackBerry ...

The Time’s Up Movement has pledged support for the #MuteRKelly campaign after sexual misconduct accusations, some decades-old, against the RnB star. The decision, led by the Women of Colour (WOC) group, includes director Ava Duvernay and singer Janelle Monae. Labels, businesses and music venues promoting Kelly are to be targeted. He denies all the allegations. A statement urged women to ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has revealed what he says are “secret nuclear files” proving Iran once covertly pursued nuclear weapons. He said thousands of pages of material obtained by Israel showed Iran had deceived the world by denying it had ever sought nuclear weapons. Iran agreed in 2015 to curb its nuclear energy programme in return for the lifting ...

Logan Paul – one of YouTube’s most popular and controversial video-makers – has announced he will no longer release material on a “daily” basis. The 23-year-old began his Daily Vlogs series in September 2016, and has since built up an audience of 17 million subscribers. He said that his channel would survive, but that he wanted “to exercise [my] creativity ...

Facebook is now testing its “downvote” button in New Zealand, following a similar trial which took place in the US in February. The tool, which appears on some public posts, will let people hide comments and provide feedback about them. The BBC understands that there are no immediate plans to roll it out across the social network. Discussion site Reddit ...

The French government is being sued over the way it has sought to take over the France.com web domain. In 2015, France started legal action against Frenchman Jean-Noel Frydman, who had registered France.com in 1994. Two years later, a French court ruled in France’s favour and the government began to lobby domain host web.com to take control away from Mr ...

After a week of controversial Twitter postings, Kanye West has defended his support of the US president in a new song. The track Ye vs. The People sees the star trading lyrics with fellow-rapper T.I., who takes him to task over his support of Donald Trump. “You representin’ dudes who seem crude and cold-hearted,” argues T.I., adding that West is ...

More than 100,000 men in Mozambique are to be circumcised in a bid to help prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/Aids. The health authorities in the central province of Zambezia say their campaign will focus on districts of Ato-Molocue, Ile and Gurue, where circumcision is not a common practice. This is the second phase of a project that kicked off ...

Following the successes of two German Bundesliga clubs in holding pre-season camps in South Africa, Ghanaian fans could see their favourite Bundesliga clubs in the country soon. The Bundesliga fever is steadily catching up with many football fans on the African continent, being fruits of the league´s partnership with StarTimes Media after the Chinese company signed a five-year contract as ...